Waltz With Death : No Angel's Friend
by EnsorcelledFerret
Summary: Toji Suzuhara - The Fourth Child. Chosen at random, or by Fate's Design, he's forced to pick up the role as Pilot of Eva Unit 03... but when he finally meets his Eva.... it's definately not what he expected.


Waltz With Death : No Angel's Friend  
  
-by PiperZ  
  
(( piperz@creationmail.com ))  
  
Wednesday, March 17, 2004  
  
15:06:14 PM EST.  
  
Warnings: I don't really have any this time, though maybe I should mention the whole 'might contain spoilers' thing. That's about it. No sex in this story. Drat. XP!  
  
Disclaimer and Note: I don't own any part of Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Story, affiliated characters, plotlines, and actions discribed therein are sole property of the creators of Neon Genesis Evangelion. All rights and reservations are theirs alone. I do, however, take credit for the follow fiction, in which I used characters, series names, et cetera for my personal entertainment. I make no money from this fiction, I'm just an adoring fan. A sidenote, however... I really think that Neon Genesis Evangelion could have played out a little bit better. However, I DO enjoy the series all around. If I could have changed one thing, it would have been giving Toji a bigger role than he had. Yeah, it was vital in affecting the way Shinji thought about certain things, but that lasted for what... an episode.. maybe two? Definately could have fixed that. Oh, and another thing might have been Kaworu's (Kaoru's) role. Too short, again. ^-^!!  
  
Other than that, enjoy the fiction.  
  
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I never asked to be an Evangelion pilot. I never wanted to bear such a burden. The lives of hundreds.. no.. thousands of people so easily at my command. My battles determining whether they live or die. Whether WE live or die. Each shot from my weapon, each movement I make, each time I would have to climb into the commanding seat of my assigned Eva Unit 03.  
  
I was scared when they first brought me out of class, and told me the news. Scared. Shocked. Any sudden rushes of manly pride I might have had were quelled instananeously. Shinji. Would I turn out to be like Shinji? Asked -- no, FORCED -- to pilot the Evangelions for a purpose not fully understood? Would I accidentally, in my quest to 'help the world', hurt others in the process? Like Shinji did...  
  
I knew I couldn't refuse. How can you refuse something like.. THAT? But...  
  
... I had conditions to be met. My sister...  
  
She was transported so soon after my affirmation to NERV that I would pilot Unit 03. So hastily removed from the top level hospitals and thrust beneath the surface into NERV facitilies. Didn't they even want to see if I could WORK their Eva Unit?! It must not really have mattered.  
  
Afterall, who could avoid destiny? They just seemed to be so quick about it. Their actions made me wonder about their intent. Their true intent. Was I needed as a pilot so bad that they would rush around like the perverbial 'chicken with its head cut off'? Was I really needed THAT much?  
  
What about the rest of the pilots? What about their skills, their duties, their Eva Units?  
  
I hear Eva Unit 01 can do some pretty amazing things....  
  
So why me? Why now?  
  
I have so many questions, yet I don't want to ask. I don't want to know. There can't be limitless amounts of Angels anyway, can there? Nothing is limitless. Nothing. Not even time. It has to end sometime, and when it does, I won't have to pilot for them. I won't have to be a tool. And neither will Shinji, Rei, or dare I say it... Asuka.  
  
When it's all over, we can go back to our normal lives, right? My sister will recover, and go back to school. I'll go back to school. Shinji... Rei.. Asuka.. they'll all go back to their normal lives. Their normal routines. God, the way Rei acks, you wouldn't really think she had a 'normal life' outside of piloting the Evangelions. But I suppose, if you're trained so much to do one thing, it becomes instilled within you. Locked within your mind, unable to break free, but bursting within your very core. If it's all you have ever really known, is there really any point in trying to fake 'normality'?  
  
I feel sorry for Rei. She seems so sad.  
  
I sit here and I think about tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll meet with my new superiors, and be introduced to Unit 03 at the Matsushiro Secondary Test Facility. Damn, all these big words make my head hurt. I'm supposed to be settled in for some kind of assessment. Some kind of syncronization test. I don't really understand the entire ordeal, but there is supposed to be a briefing and explaination over the entire thing on the way there.  
  
I suppose, if I can 'help the world', it's worth it. If I can help my sister, it's BEYOND worth it. And Shinji... Rei.. Asuka.. All of them. If I can end their dilemnas.. their suffering over the entire Angel ordeals... then..  
  
We can only help each other in order to help ourselves.  
  
I wish Kensuke hadn't said anything about wanting to be an Evangelion pilot. I feel really shitty for ignoring him.  
  
----  
  
[ Matsushiro Secondary Test Facility :: The Next Day ]  
  
I'd never really been so rushed into learning things that I never thought I'd have the attention span to learn! Entry Plug, Syncro-Ratio, AT Field, Nerve Pulses... Alot of people sure would be sorely mistaken if they thought that piloting an Eva was like playing with a radio controlled car! The entire trip to the facility was spent being 'prepped' for what I would expect. Terms, incidents, events, logs, stats, reports... everything they could throw at me concerning piloting an Eva they did. Major Katsuragi told me via phone that it was 'just so I could be prepared'.  
  
Is this how Shinji first got introduced to the Eva Unit he now piloted? Did he have to drill like this before he ever even SAW the Eva? Looking over all the notes, and stats, I began to feel guilty again for not telling Kensuke or Shinji about my being the newest pilot. But then again, part of me didn't want to tell them, because it'd sound too much like bragging.  
  
I didn't want to brag about something I really, deep down in the pit of my very being, didn't want to do. As they say, though, we all have to do things we don't really want to at some point in time. If I could help the world.. my friends... my sister... a few notes and reports wouldn't stop me from achieving that goal.  
  
It was the least I could do, right?  
  
I arrived at the facility a short time later. It was larger than I could have imagined, but just as noisy. People rushed around everywhere, apparently having enough to do that they didn't notice the 'Fourth Child' too much at arrival. If I wasn't rushed enough to familiarize myself with the terms, notes and reports on the way there, I sure as hell was rushed to learn them as we decended into the heart of the facility.  
  
I was given a suit, and told how to function it. After putting it on, I was to meet my Eva, and prepare for the beginning of the tests. I wished I could have been able to take a breath, and maybe talk to Misat-- no, Major Katsuragi at least one more time before the tests began. But, like people have a jolly time saying, 'we don't all get to do what we WANT to do'.  
  
Suited up, I waited on a walkway while the workers prepped my new Evan Unit 03.  
  
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a LITTLE excited as I stood there, looking up at the glistening black metal that I would soon be piloting. Like a giant mecha toy, it was motionless, awaiting a commander to give it orders for movement. It was enormous! I felt dwarfed by its mighty size, and awed by its sheer majestic appearance.  
  
... did Shinji ever feel that way about his Evangelion Unit 01?  
  
After a brief examination, I was taken to a long tube-like structure known as an 'Entry Plug'. The cockpit would have been a better term for this thing. The center of the Eva, or rather the center of the pilot within the Eva Unit. I would sit here, and be inserted into the Unit 03. From there, I would control it.  
  
But before control came tests.  
  
I was settled into the Entry Plug, and it was sealed. Even though I was told about the water-like stuff that would fill the plug, I guess old habits die hard. I tried not to freak out when the capsule was filled, not like I did the first time I'd been inside of Evangelion Unit 01's plug. The first time I really started to get to know Shinji...  
  
Everything was set. I was now inside of the Evangelion Unit 03!  
  
I heard voices, voices on com-links that seemed to come from all around me. People I didn't know, and who didn't know me. Talking, spouting off numbers, terms, phrases I didn't know. They were talking about the Eva, about me, about my statistics. There were beeps, and clicks, I could hear them through the open intercoms. Everything, by the sound of it, was proceeding as normal.  
  
I gripped the control units tightly, and waited. Everything was fuzzy, warm... part of me felt numb, and the back of my head hurt a little. It was as if I was being directly connected with the Evangelion in that instant. In a way, or so the reports and notes said, I *was* being connected to the Eva Unit. By links, we were connected, Nerve Links that, according to the background noise of the com-units, were all normal.  
  
I felt like I was floating, lifting high above myself, and becoming full. I felt like I was becoming the Eva, and it was overriding my own thoughts. I guess that it was supposed to be normal, but it didn't say anything about it in those notes and reports.  
  
No sooner had I heard those distant voices say 'all normal' than I felt my gut wrench, and my head started to spin. A nauseating spiral of dizziness that engulfed my senses, and made me squeeze my eyes closed. I wanted to call out to Major Katsuragi, but I couldn't. I could only grit my teeth, and try to focus on making the pain in my head stop.  
  
'Abort the test! Break the circuit!'  
  
My surroundings shook violently, and even though I couldn't see anything with my eyes closed so tightly, I knew I was moving. I jerked my hands away from the controls, and put them to my head. This wasn't happening! I wasn't moving this Eva, so who was?! What was going on?! This COULDN'T be normal!!  
  
'No good! Mission failure! High energy readings detected in body!'  
  
It wasn't normal. The mission was a failure. The Eva wasn't reacting as it should? I wanted out, I wanted free from the restraints of the Entry Plug... I wanted to go home! I think I started to cry..  
  
'Impossible!'  
  
I felt the Eva lurch forward, and shutter. We were definately moving, walking. It was wrong. I wasn't piloting. How could an Eva move without a pilot?! I squinted my eyes open to try and look through the view screen, but it wasn't any good. My vision was too blurry to see anything, and my head throbbed more with a new burst of pain. So dizzy. I wanted to throw up, but all I could do was cry.  
  
I think I was kind of glad that Shinji and the others couldn't see me. That Asuka couldn't see me..  
  
... that Hikari couldn't see me.  
  
'An Angel?!'  
  
I heard those words, but I don't know who spoke them. Besides my scream, and the screams of the people that filtered through my intercom unit, it was the last thing I heard as I felt the world seem to explode around me. I was moving, but I was still. Moving. I wasn't controlling. Moving. Killing. Burning. Destroying.  
  
I don't know how long I kicked, and screamed in the cockpit of the Eva. I couldn't stop it. I tried to stop it, and I couldn't it. Out of control. It wouldn't answer. Did I do something wrong? I felt a great heat around me. The Nerve Links... we were .. inside an explosion?  
  
I could see hazy images through the vid-screen, but everything else was silent except for my cries, my breathing.. my struggling. Burning. It looked like everything was burning.  
  
After I realized I couldn't stop the Eva, I tried to use the com-links. Maybe they'd work now that we seemed to be moving away from the heat, away from the facility that the Eva seemed to have destroyed. Out of control.. damn you, Unit 03!  
  
They didn't work, those coms. Not even static. I didn't know what else to do. There was nothing in the manuals, notes or reports about this. No one said that the Eva could go out of control like this! Not like this!  
  
I hugged my knees up close to me, buried my forehead against my knees, and cried again. I didn't want any of this. Never. Now I couldn't escape. What about my sister? My friends...  
  
... my.... FRIENDS!  
  
The other Evas! That was it! Surely they would send the other Evas out to recapture this out of control fiend! This... angel..  
  
... NO!  
  
THE EVA WAS AN ANGEL!  
  
NERV wouldn't capture it, they'd destroy it! Did they know I was still inside of this thing? Did they know that the test was a failure and that the new pilot was helpless inside of this stupid machine?!  
  
I gritted my teeth. Of course they didn't know. How could they know? I .. no, the Evangelion Unit 03 had destroyed the Test Facility, and with it any communication that might have been sent. Everyone who could have told the other pilots were dead.  
  
Misato... was...  
  
I cried harder.  
  
-----  
  
I don't know how long it was that I sat like that, my knees clutched so tightly. It wasn't until the Eva started jerking wildly that I lifted my head to try and see what was going on. Was someone coming to save me? Did someone know I was here?  
  
The vid-screen was blurry, and my head still hurt, but I could make out a figure. An... an EVA! It was coming up on the screen fast, but... it wasn't moving at all. It was 03 that was moving, running.. no.. jumping.  
  
I wanted to scream out, to yell for the Eva to move, to warn the pilot somehow, but before I could think of anything to try, Unit 03 was on top of the other Eva. There was no contest, the match was too short, and the battle a victory. I rubbed ground my teeth together as the red Eva fell. God, I didn't know who the pilot was... I hoped it wasn't Shinji....  
  
We were moving again. A slow pace, walking... I frantically began searching the vid-screens for signs of other Evas. There were two others, right? Surely they wouldn't send one Eva all alone for something like this. If they'd found out that this Eva was running amok, then surely they'd send reinforcements! Afterall, it was an Angel!  
  
I had to brace myself by grabbing the steering controls as I felt the Eva lurch downward, then suddenly leap up. Jumping. Forward, up, then backward... Another Eva instantly came into the view on the screen. Blue Eva. Was that Shinji? I wanted to scream across the intercoms, but they just wouldn't work! So I just screamed at the screen. I knew he wouldn't hear me, but I suppose it made *me* feel a little better.  
  
If something went wrong.. if they couldn't save me.. save the Eva... I had to find a way to destroy it, or it would kill more people like it did back at the Facility.  
  
More people would die.  
  
My sister, she was at NERV. If the Angel tried to get to NERV, *she* might die. I couldn't stand for that!  
  
Evangelion Unit 03 dispatched the second Eva almost as shortly as it had the first. I don't know what it did exactly, but in a very small amount of time, we were moving on, and the Eva was on the ground.  
  
One more Eva to go. God, if there was ANY hope of saving me, then this was it. This was the last chance. I couldn't think, the dizziness in my head was growing, and I felt numb all over. Slumping back into the pilot seat, I grabbed the controls hard again, trying once more to gain control of the rampaging Eva. And just as before, my efforts were futile.  
  
Why had they asked me to pilot this stupid thing?! DID THEY EVEN TEST IT FIRST?! Or was I just some expendable guinnea pig?! The very thought pained me, that someone would think I was so expendable they could test their stupid war weapons on me. Is this how Rei felt? Asuka? Shinji? Did Misato even care? Did she realize her mistake as she was burned away by the very machine she was trying to make me run the mouse maze in?  
  
Did it even matter anymore?  
  
At last, the last Eva came into sight on the vid-screen. Evangelion Unit 01. That was Shinji's Eva! That was the Eva he'd piloted when he saved me and Kensuke from that Angel.. the Eva I was in the cockpit of.. the Eva that accidentally injured my sister....  
  
01.  
  
I couldn't warn them. I didn't have a way to. Nothing worked! So helpless... god, I felt so helpless! Did they know I was in here? Shinji... did he know? Could he save me?  
  
I screamed his name at least ten times, I think, as the Eva drew closer and closer to its target. I told him to leave, to move, to run... but I knew he couldn't hear me. I could barely hear myself anymore. Only a dull buzz replaced my words, dizziness, and nausea. I think I threw up at least once as the two Evas clashed together.  
  
Why wasn't he fighting back?  
  
He must have known I was in here! He must have been told who the pilot was, and that was why he wouldn't attack me. That was why...  
  
... why he hesitated, why he lingered back... why he let Evangelion Unit 03 beat the living shit out of him.  
  
I didn't want to watch, didn't want to look at the vid-screen... didn't want to see Unit 03's hands grasping Unit 01's throat. Choking. Choking Unit 01.... choking Shinji... But I couldn't look away, couldn't turn my eyes from the blurry image. Was he going to die? Was *I* going to die? What could we do? What was there to do that would save us all? The people at the Test Facility... Misato.. the other Eva pilots.. Shinji... me...  
  
Were we all going to die.. here?  
  
I was just about to retch again when Eva Unit 01 lifted its own hands, and grapped the throat of Unit 03. I wanted to cheer at the retaliation, but I couldn't cheer.  
  
I couldn't BREATHE!  
  
Clutching at my own throat, I tried to struggle. I knew it wasn't real.. it wasn't my throat.. it wasn't me.. it wasn't me at all! Was I still connected with the Eva so closely that I could feel its pain? If that was the case, what would happen if Shinji had to kill the Eva to save me?  
  
... would I die?!  
  
The two Evas struggled against each other, but I knew that Evangelion Unit 01 was winning. Winning... and Unit 03.. no.. *I* was losing. I heard a loud cracking noise, and the sound that reminded me of someone's tortured scream.  
  
And then..  
  
...........nothing.  
  
------ END ------  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Author's Notes: I wrote this after I'd watched the original episodes 1-26. (Which means NOT including 'Death & Rebirth' and 'The End Of Evangelion'.) Don't be too harsh on me. XP I just felt that Toji deserved a little credit, ya know? Afterall, he wasn't really mentioned at all after the incident with Unit 03. For all we know, he could have died, and no one would have known about it. And what about Kensuke Aida? Do people forget about THESE characters? Jeez. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the fiction. Any comments, critiques, flames or otherwise are always welcome. (( piperz@creationmail.com ))  
  
This fiction took approximately one hour to write. Yay. XD! 


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